Teaching assistants and cats

Communication with children, communication with children and parents whose first language is not English, child safety, child development, childhood transitions, inclusion, case studies, National Curriculum, setting up displays, and what the roles of each member of the school entail.

This is a list of some of the topics what the course I signed up for yesterday will cover. I want to mention that as part of first week pre-planning as a teacher in Florida we were given a brief about what to do if we suspect child abuse, and how we can never lay our hands on a child, but I was never, ever taught child development. I was never taught how inclusion works, how to help students with different learning abilities, etc. I was pretty much thrown into a classroom and left to my own untrained devices.

The TA course starts after Easter and I’m super excited because it’s close by, and my job placement school said they didn’t mind if I didn’t come in to help out until April. (Something I was a bit worried about since I asked about getting that placement in December. I was going to start this local course in Jan, so I thought, but the tutor yesterday said they just didn’t have the means to do it until Spring.)

Eh, fine by me.

Now that I’m registered and have stuff to look forward to again, stuff that may actually help me with my teaching dreams in the long run, I feel 100% better. (Steve also only has two more days of work until his vacation. Hooray!) I walked a lot yesterday to get to the adult learning centre instead of taking the car. This made me super exhausted and in need of a nap after dinner (tea, you know) but I stayed in the bed all night.

Well, until the cat decided to start peeling the wallpaper off the wall in the bedroom at 7AM. What the heck? But, that’s his routine. He usually starts trying to wake us up at that time because he thinks we’ll starve him or never clean his litter box, or whatever goes on in his catty brain.

We’ve contemplated getting a female cat sister for him. He’s going to be 8 years old on Valentine’s Day (wow, my life has changed so much for the better in those 8 years) so I’m not sure if he’s mellowed in his middle age enough to have a cat friend on his turf or not. I would rather get a rescue cat who needs a home and is use to other cats around. I’ve just not gotten the nerve to go to the RSPCA and investigate the situation. (Because I know I’ll fall in love with one of them and take them home.)

Of course, I want a dog, but we don’t have a house, so that may be too much of a pain for us and the dog.

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